Christy and Paul Akeo were detained in Cancún on March 4 after stepping off a plane from Michigan and placed in a maximum security prison, where they remain 24 days later.
The couple is accused of defrauding Palace Resorts between 2021 and 2022 by wrongly reversing credit card transactions after they purchased a timeshare package which guaranteed them preferential rates.
But their daughter, Lindsey, insists her parents were within their rights to do so after the resort breached the contract they’d signed. She has accused the resort of setting her parents up and holding them captive as retribution.
The resort has now disputed the daughter’s pleas of innocence, arguing that Interpol certified the arrest warrant after the couple defrauded more than $116,000, then encouraged other Americans to do the same.
‘Paul and Christy Akeo fraudulently disputed legitimate credit card charges and publicly encouraged others to do the same,’ a company spokesperson told ABC.
In a separate statement, the company said: ‘They were found to have breached their contract by promoting, for profit and/or commercial purposes, preferential rates and various benefits via social media which consequently led to the withdrawal of supplementary benefits initially included in their contract.’
It went on to suggest the couple may have been disgruntled with the consequences of their actions, prompting them to first dispute recent charges and stopping future payments entirely.
In posts seen by DailyMail purportedly from Christy’s social media page, she celebrated that she’d helped ‘thousands of members… without negative impacts to their credit.’
‘Anyone who is trying to get out of their membership and is hesitant… If you need help, please let me know,’ Christy posted.
The saga centers around a timeshare investment the Akeo’s first made in 2016 and continued to upgrade 18 times over the years, totaling a $1.4million investment into Palace Hotels.
Christy herself told another hotel goer that she visited the resort once a month to escape Michigan’s dreary weather, making the most of her $500,000 investment into the venue.
According to the resort, the Akeo’s made a total of 1,570 bookings during the course of their membership, which was last upgraded in 2021.
When they weren’t using the resort, they would advertise their room out on social media, primarily Facebook, offering all-inclusive food and drink packages, manicures and massages, as well as the accommodation.
Christy claimed her relationship went south with Palace because she and Paul successfully referred so many members that they’d amassed a huge amount of free week-long stays, which were used as incentives for members to lure in new clients.
This was standard practice among certain tiered members, and some of the families the Akeo’s referred said the couple singlehandedly brought millions of dollars into the resort.
But as a result of what the resort deemed to be a breach, they allegedly began canceling some of the Akeo’s upcoming bookings.
John Manly, the Akeo family attorney, said in a statement the couple ‘got lured into this timeshare.’
‘Initially it was some reasonable amount a month, and then they, according to what we’ve been told, they took away their benefits and essentially made them increase their monthly contribution to $6,200 a month.
‘But in exchange for that, they were supposed to be able to sell weeks of their timeshare so people could use them, and that interests Palace because they get to sell to more people.
‘What began to occur is Palace just began to cancel the reservations. So essentially, they’re paying $6,200 a month for which anybody who’s middle class or retired is a lot of money, not allowing them to sell their weeks that they have promised and essentially defaulted or breached, rather, the contract.’
A hotel goer who was referred by Christy shared a message she’d received from her when the dispute was unfolding in a group set up by her daughter to bolster support amid their arrests.
It read: ‘What we did and Palace didn’t like, was use our membership a lot! I would go down monthly because I don’t work and we live in crappy weather Michigan.
‘To sum it up, if you use the benefits of your contract multiple times or more than Palace wants you to, they do not like it.’
The resort’s decision to subsequently suspend some of the couple’s perks as well as cancel upcoming stays breached the contract they signed, Christy believed after seeking the advice of a lawyer.
As such, she and Paul felt well within their rights to dispute their recent charges. The couple made claims against 13 charges between 2021 and 2022, totaling $116,000.
Amex sided with them, returning the cash and prompting the resort to take legal action.
In another post made from Christy’s Facebook account, others in the Akeo’s predicament were advised to “report any and all credit card you used for monthly payments as lost or stolen… also any cards you may have used at resort for incidentals, gift shop purchases etc.
‘Then just quit making your monthly payments. Palace will harass you for a few months by email, phone calls and even WhatsApp, but it’s very important not to respond to any of these.
It takes about 3-4 months and then they will stop,” the post added.
Another Palace member said the Akeo’s decision to advertise their condo was actually encouraged by staff at the resort.
‘Palace has a referral program that would let you have people travel under your membership and every time you got 2 groups to go, you got a free week,’ the insider said.
‘My parents would recruit people to travel under our membership for the same reason. Tons of people advertise their membership, also for the same reason. In meetings, palace would encourage us to do the same.’
Local media in Mexico shared pictures of the couple’s arrest and said they were ‘wanted by Interpol’ at the time they were picked up.
A judge ruled Palace Resorts would have 6 more months to gather evidence against the couple and build their case, ordering the couple to remain in jail as the case proceeds.
Lindsey said in a Facebook post the couple have been tortured as a ‘direct response of The Palace Company’s corruption, extortion, retaliation and blackmail.’
‘Despite asking numerous times to speak to Paul, we have yet to have ANY communication with him,’ she said.
Lindsey said her mother has lost 25lbs in prison in 20 days because authorities continue to offer food they know she is allergic to, and that she has developed a severe rash all over her body.
‘We have spent thousands of dollars towards Mexican legal representation, but unfortunately that only goes so far when dealing with this level of corruption and extortion,’ she said.
She also questioned how her mother’s social media posts could have any bearing on the case.
‘My mom was very clear about that in this Facebook group where people were seeking information on what to do when you get in these memberships,’ Hull told CNN.
‘If there’s 8,000 people dealing with the same thing, and the same disappointments with Palace Resorts, and how they treat their members, maybe you should look in the mirror and make a change.’
Lindsey’s stepfather Paul is a US Navy Chief Petty Officer who has served the United States for 21 years.
In the wake of their arrests, other disgruntled Palace Hotel members and former members have spoken out.
‘This is the company we just finished disputing our charges with,’ one former customer in America wrote on a Facebook post.
‘Having been threatened by them when we were there, I am not in the least bit surprised by this.
‘Guess we’re never going back to Mexico since we filed a dispute with our credit card company and they found in our favor… we might get arrested as well.’
